Framemeister : end of production

Micomsoft has hit a big hit with its upscaler and video capture devices and I'm one who thought it was going to last and a new era of upscaling solutions for retro consoles was about to start ...

Unfortunately a sad news has fallen. According to a 4gamer article, Micomsoft stops production of Framemeister and no device will come as a replacement. Apparently the production of one of the components ends and the company have not found a new alternative yet:

"On December 1, 2016, Micomsoft announced that it would stop production of the Frameister N (formerly XRGB mini), following the announcement of the end of production of an integrated circuit central in the architecture and with the absence of a valid replacement, there are unfortunately no plans to produce a possible successor. People involved in its design admit that it will probably be the last XRGB. "

For those who do not know yet, the XRGB mini is the best performing upscaler in its class. It makes it possible to transform the composite signal, S-video, RGB and D-video natively to HDMI. The component / YUV signals can also be converted via a component to D-video adapter (the signals are very similar).

Created especially to play old consoles on Full HD TV, it includes a whole lot of settings to reproduce with fidelity the original image with the best quality. To take an example that interests us, the Dreamcast, it allows to reproduce its resolution (720x480 with black bands) keeping the right proportions. This format is generally not well supported natively by televisions that create deformations of the original image by forcing the 640x480: XRGB wiki.

The article adds that if the potential buyers of this upscaler wish to obtain it for sure before the end of its sale, it will have to be done before the month of February because otherwise there may not be enough remaining units in stock to satisfy everyone.

It is a pity that the market leader leaves the scene and I am afraid that the other solutions (the OSSC for example) will become more expensive thereafter, due to the high demand and lack of serious competitor. I hope that another company will take over or playing ones favorite consoles with the original hardware might become complicated.

Update: The youtubers of My Life In Gaming, specialists of the Framemeister and all RGB things, look more optimistic on this matter and expect several months before a possible shortage comes up:

Be sure to visit their channel if you don't know them already, because they provide really detailed and practical information on how to plug your retro consoles to your HDTV to get the best picture out of it.